Jasimae's Journey Thread (To Keep Me Sane and To Help Others)

[jasimae]

I agree with you.  The mortgage process seems to vary from state to state or even from lender to lender.  I don't believe you are required to have an attorney but it is highly recommended that one is used.  The home I am planning on purchasing is a "regular" purchase not a short sale.  I do have a realtor but she just does that.  She does not do contracts.  Even if she did I would still have hired an attorney just to ensure all of the legalities concerning the transaction were fully covered.

[jasimae]

Hey Folks.  Just wanted to update you on recent events.  I saw my attorney last night and signed the contract and give my $3K earnest check.  It's funny, yesterday morning as I was at the bank getting the cashier's check, the teller kept eyeing me suspiciously as she was going over the withdrawal slip that I filled out.  She then sighed and said "your signature doesn't match."  I'm like..."match what?"  She turns the screen around and shows me all of the checks that have been written on my account in the past year and they were all written by my fiance' because he uses my account and checks to pay for daycare.  I looked at his scrawling handwriting and laughed.  I explained it to her and she laughed, too.  She then asked for my ID and I gave it to her but it had my old address on it.  I lost my entire wallet about 2 weeks ago and I only had my old license.  She then stated that the addresses didn't match.  I then explained the lost wallet situation.  All I could think of was "this cannot really be happening."  She called a manager over and I explained both scenarios all over again and they finally processed the cashiers check.  I'm not sure to be thankful for such stringent security measures or panicky.  I was surely panicking at the thought of not being able to get my money.  I also had to think about when was the last time I actually handwrote a check.  I told my fiance' that I will write all the daycare checks out going forward!  I go this Saturday to meet the loan officer to complete the official application.  Will post on that later.

[jasimae]

One additional note, the seller repaired the minor electrical issues and e-mailed a copy of the completed repair work order.  So far everything SEEMS to be going straight.  My fingers are crossed that the underwriters won't give me any grief and the appraisal comes back high enough to cover everything!

[Anonymous]

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@jasimae wrote:

Hey Folks.  Just wanted to update you on recent events.  I saw my attorney last night and signed the contract and give my $3K earnest check.  It's funny, yesterday morning as I was at the bank getting the cashier's check, the teller kept eyeing me suspiciously as she was going over the withdrawal slip that I filled out.  She then sighed and said "your signature doesn't match."  I'm like..."match what?"  She turns the screen around and shows me all of the checks that have been written on my account in the past year and they were all written by my fiance' because he uses my account and checks to pay for daycare.  I looked at his scrawling handwriting and laughed.  I explained it to her and she laughed, too.  She then asked for my ID and I gave it to her but it had my old address on it.  I lost my entire wallet about 2 weeks ago and I only had my old license.  She then stated that the addresses didn't match.  I then explained the lost wallet situation.  All I could think of was "this cannot really be happening."  She called a manager over and I explained both scenarios all over again and they finally processed the cashiers check.  I'm not sure to be thankful for such stringent security measures or panicky.  I was surely panicking at the thought of not being able to get my money.  I also had to think about when was the last time I actually handwrote a check.  I told my fiance' that I will write all the daycare checks out going forward!  I go this Saturday to meet the loan officer to complete the official application.  Will post on that later.

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you are going to laugh about this alot while sitting in the living room of your new house really soon!

[ficochat]

Will be following your journey - best of luck!

[jasimae]

I went in yesterday to sign the mortgage application.  All I can say is WHOA!  It was like 65 pages in total.  There was a disclosure for everything with a disclosure for the disclosure! My hand literally started getting weak after just the sixth signature.  I don't believe I've ever signed my name that many times.  I was actually nervous and started sweating.  I felt like I was selling my soul.  Loan officer pulled my reports right there and my scores weren't too bad.  EQ-677; TU-698; EX-688.  They are using EX as my mid-score.  She was extremely pleased with my reports.  Just one charg-off reporting with a zero balance.  Both tax liens reporting as satisfied.  She said my DTI was 30/39 and she was really pleased with that.  Let's hope this trend of good things keeps going forward.  She's sending file to loan processor to arrange to be sent to underwriter on Monday and underwriter should have it Tuesday or Wednesday.  I had to pay for the appraisal yesterday, which I wasn't expecting either, but it was cool.  I wish she would have mentioned that in advance so I would have known.  I don't like surprises, especially when it comes to my money.  Still keeping my fingers crossed that all continues to go well.  Will continue to keep you all posted.

[payingoffdebt001]

Exciting! Keep on moving forward - sounds like you are sliding on through..so far so good!

By the way, what determines the Earnest Money Amount? I was under the assumption Earnest checks were always $500-1000 but I think that was in the stone age!

Just thought I'd ask since I didnt really find a answer on this when I searched the forums here.

[jasimae]

I read somewhere, not on this forum but just from the internet, that the earnest deposit should be no more than 2% of the purchase price. It seems that its really market specific though and since its still somewhat a buyer's market, it can increase if there are multiple offers on a home and the buyer wants to make themselves more appealing to the seller.

[jasimae]

So I emailed my LO on Fri. 12/7 since I hadn't heard anything since I completed the application on Sat. 12/1. She responded quickly and stated that they ordered the appraisal. Then the loan processor emailed me a welcome letter to inform me that she bis preparing my file for submission to underwriting. She needed clarification of a few items as follows: she wanted a recent bank statement to show the earnest deposit actually coming out of my bank account (my new statement had just cut that day so I provided it); she wanted a fully executed copy of the contract, which my attorney just received yesterday (so he emailed that to her); she wanted explanations for two large deposits into my bank account which were over $1K (they were both my paychecks that I had manually deposited due to a payroll error with my job); she asked me to explain the 4 recent inquiries on my report, one of which was theirs (I thought that was odd); she wanted to see my mutual fund and stock statements (which I provided to her); she asked me to explain a notation on my credit report under my car finance company that states "affected by Hurricane Sandy". I have pulled my reportrs every day and didn't see this notation. I called the finance company and was told that they bput that notation on the report of every customer in the affected areas. I was like "why?" But they didn't have an answer for me. My payment has never been late and I certainly wasn't late due to the hurricane. I still paid on time. So she had to pull a supplemental report for just that tradeline and I had to do a 3 way call with Corelogic and my finance company so they could verify that, which they did. I was like "damn". So I called the processor and told her that I had the call and she should be receiving an ok from Corelogic. I'm hoping she can send my file to underwriting tomorrow or Thursday the latest. I'm itching to get this ball rolling. For some reason, I'm looking forward to underwriting. I'm actually glad the processor bis being this thorough because hopefully everything will be in good order so the underwriter can breeze through my file, but that's probably just wishful thinking on my part.

[jasimae]

Hello folks.  The loan processor submitted my documents to underwriting on Thursday, 12/20.  She told me that "we should have a commitment next week."  In my head I was like "yeah right".  Given the Christmas holiday and New Years I didn't expect to hear anything from anyone until at least the second week in January.  Although I was on pins and needles the entire holiday and literally forcing myself not to e-mail anyone despite the fact that I was checking my e-mail like a maniac.  On Friday, 12/28,  at 4:17 pm I received an e-mail from the loan processor that my loan was approved.  There were a total of 9 minor approval conditions which included items such as "verbal verification of employment" and "loan to be locked and lock disclosure to be signed" and "provide papertrail for 3 deposits" and "provide hazard insurance policy sufficient to cover mortgage" and "provide a satisfactory title report" and "explain different address on drivers license" and "provide evidence that the downpayment grant I am receiving is approved by lender" (I thought this one was odd given my loan officer personally told me that she got approval from their corporate office that the grant was good to go) and "borrower to provide letter that a fraud alert is on credit report and that I agree to proceed with the loan at this time".  When I got home from work on Friday, I ordered the homeowners insurance policy.  I then woke up early Saturday morning and provided my response to each of the conditions with relevant supporting documentation as necessary and e-mailed everything back to both loan processors, my loan officer and copied my attorney.  Can't begin to tell you guys how psyched me and my family are.  I truly thought the underwriting process would be weeks on end but it went better than I could have hoped.  Hopefully no more conditions and I will get a clear to close in the next week or two.  Will continue to keep you all posted.